


Unbendable

by cloudymagnolia



Series: Unbendable [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coma, F/M, Missing Scene, kataangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 12:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17121392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudymagnolia/pseuds/cloudymagnolia
Summary: The human body doesn't stop functioning just because it's in a coma. A look at all that Katara went through to care for Aang, after the fall of Ba Sing Se.





	Unbendable

**Author's Note:**

> First AtLA fic! This is mostly compliant with the stories in The Lost Adventures comic examining the time when Aang was in his coma, but there may be slight divergences. Chalk it up to a different person's point of view.

His reunion with his daughter was nothing like how he’d imagined it.

The four of them - well, five if you counted the Earth King, and six if you counted the Earth King’s bear - arrived on the back of the sky bison just a few days after Sokka had left. At first, his men had waved and cheered. News of the fall of Ba Sing Se had yet to reach them. But as they got closer, and their charred clothing and haunted postures came into clearer view, the cheering died away. It stopped completely when they saw the limp figure in Katara’s arms.

The fleet was silent as the bison landed in the water near them. Sokka dropped to the deck of Hakoda’s boat first, then reached up to steady his sister as she slid down, still clutching the prone form in her arms. As soon as her feet hit wood, she was barking orders.

“Sokka, get me the blankets. Toph, I need water!”

“There’s water all around you,” the younger girl said, taking Sokka’s offered hand as she, too, slid to the deck.

“I need  _ fresh  _ water, Toph.”

The girl tried to take a step and fell.

“Oh, no. This boat is made of wood, isn’t it.”

At the time, Hakoda thought it a strange thing to say. As she crawled on her knees, holding her hands out in front of her, he realized she was blind.

One of his men had run to get Katara water, and Sokka laid some blankets down on the deck. Only then did Katara let go of the boy in her arms. The only sounds as she lay the boy out on the blankets, face down so that his hideous wound faced the sky, were the whines of the bison.

“Someone get me bandages,” Katara snapped. She ran her hands over the neck of the boy’s tattered tunic. “And a knife, I need a knife!”

Several were proffered to her from the hip and boot sheathes of the surrounding warriors. She grabbed one at random and set to work cutting the tunic away from the boy. There was a collective hiss from the boats as the men saw the extent of his wounds.

In that moment, Hakoda knew he was dead. No one, not even the Avatar, could survive such catastrophic wounds.

A jug of water appeared at her side, and with one long motion of her arm, she Bent it into a thin, smooth ribbon that danced above her head. Hakoda’s breath caught in his throat, and he heard a few ragged cries from the other boats. It had been more than forty years since anyone in the Southern Water Tribe had seen true Waterbending. As the water began to glow, and the men realized what they were seeing, the cries got louder. It had been almost one hundred years since the Southern Water Tribe had last had a Healer.

Hakoda swallowed hard, as his daughter snaked the healing water around the Avatar’s torso. Using the water almost as a lasso, she encircled him with it and drew him up on his knees. Perhaps even in the midst of the despair of the passing of the Avatar, there was a glimmer of hope. Waterbending had come to the Southern Water Tribe again. 

But then the boy groaned.

Katara froze.

“Shh, Aang,” Hakoda saw, more than heard, her whisper. “I have to do this. I have to bandage your wounds.”

He groaned again, but this time there might have been a word in it. A word, or his daughter’s name. She took his hand in hers and brought it up to her face so that it was cupping her cheek.

At that moment, Katara glanced up and saw him watching her. She let the Avatar’s hand fall away, wiped her eyes on her wristguard, and kept working.

In all, it couldn’t have taken more than ten minutes, but it had felt much longer than that. When she had finished, she’d turned to him and Sokka.

“What’s the plan?” she asked. Hakoda noticed that no matter how she turned, she always kept at least one of her hands on the Avatar.

“Um, I have a suggestion,” came an anachronistically cheerful voice from the back of the great beast’s saddle. All eyes turned. Hakoda wondered if he was the only one who had forgotten about the Earth King. “I don’t love boats, so if we don’t have any firm plans, perhaps we could… camp on land?”

They made a brief camp, just so that Hakoda, Sokka, and his men could detail a new strategy, now that they had a wounded Avatar in tow. Katara disappeared almost immediately into one of the tents, still holding the Avatar in her arms.

It wasn’t long before the Earth King had decided to travel the world on his own. No one was thrilled with the idea, but in the end they couldn’t exactly take an allying monarch hostage. And for a sheltered figurehead - as Sokka told him - he could be surprisingly strong willed. In the end, they all gathered on the shores of Chameleon Bay to watch the king, now dressed in Fire Nation rags, begin the journey inland. 

It wound up being an act of providence that he  _ had  _ left when he did. As soon as night fell, one of Hakoda’s lookouts reported a Fire Nation ship approaching the bay.

“Have they seen us?” Sokka asked.

“If the haven’t yet, they will soon,” Bato replied. “That’s a scouting ship; the fleet can’t be far behind. We’ll have to fight our way out of this one.”

“No,” Hakoda said. “If they signal the fleet, there will be too many of them for us to fight.”

“Maybe we don’t  _ have  _ to fight the fleet,” Sokka said, cupping his chin in a hand. “What if we  _ weren’t  _ their enemy?”

Even the flying lemur-monkey looked nonplussed.

“Are you feeling alright, son?” Bato asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I feel fine _.  _ Just hear me out. Maybe we can fight one ship without having to fight a whole fleet. Maybe we can take control of that scouting ship and disguise ourselves with it. That way, we’ll look just like the rest of the Fire Navy.”

Bato turned to him, one eyebrow raised. “That’s… actually not a terrible idea,” he said.

Hakoda clapped his son on the shoulder, and felt foolishly pleased when Sokka beamed.

“Bato, tell the men to sink their boats. The damage needs to look bad - like a battle took place - but be easy to repair. We’ll need the boats later.”

“Hull breaches?” Bato suggested.

Hakoda nodded.

“Then we need to get everyone into the canoes. We’ll row out to the ship - we’ll be harder to spot with no sails. Katara, get the children and those who can’t fight aboard my boat. We’ll keep that one seaworthy, just in case.”

“Then come back here to the canoes,” Sokka jumped in. “We need you to raise a mist so the ship doesn’t see us coming. Right?” he asked, turning to Hakoda.

“Right,” Hakoda said, but he felt a tinge of - something. Pride, certainly, but it was more complex than that. He had been going to tell Katara to stay aboard his boat; Healers were too precious to risk going into battle. But he knew his daughter was a warrior as well as a Healer. What a cruel twist of war’s irony that the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe had never learned how to deploy a Waterbender in battle. 

They rowed up to the scouting ship under cover of Katara’s fog. With a wave of his hand, Hakoda signalled to his men to begin scaling the ship, with him - as always - in the lead.

Sokka brought up the rear. As soon as he had reached the deck, he swung the young blind girl down off his back. She immediately stumbled, going down on one knee and using a hand to steady herself.

“Sokka, what are you  _ thinking _ ?” Hakoda hissed. “I told your sister to take everyone who can’t fight to my boat! This is no place for a blind  _ child -  _ “

“Four swords that way,” the blind child interrupted him, pointing to one end of the ship. “And two axes straight ahead.”

His men stared at her, until Sokka hissed, “You heard her!  _ Go! _ ”

“What about to Port?” Hakoda asked as his men fanned out in the dissipating fog.

“You mean to the  _ right _ ?” Toph asked. “Three guards with bolas.” Something came whizzing out of the darkness. Toph jerked up a hand, and it clattered harmlessly to the deck long before it had finished its arc. She stood and took a warrior’s stance. 

“But they’re  _ mine _ .”

They made short work of the ship’s capture after that, and soon they had eighteen guards, tied up and on their knees on the deck.

Hakoda walked up to Toph where she was leaning nonchalantly against the rail, stroking the strange lemur-bat thing. She looked up as he approached. It was eerie, he thought, watching those unseeing eyes follow his movements.

“I apologize for my words,” he said. “I see now what a fierce warrior you are.” He held out a hand.

The girl grinned. “No offense taken,” she said, gripping his arm above the wrist in traditional Water Tribe fashion. One of his children must have taught her that. “After all, I  _ am  _ a blind child. And I’m pretty useless on wood. I can only really see if I have earth or metal under my-” she cocked her head.

“Uh-oh.  _ Brace! _ ” she hollered.

Hakoda just had time to grab hold of the ship’s bow before the tidal wave hit. For a few long seconds, the only thing he could hear was the roaring of the water. All he could feel were the icy fingers of the sea trying to pry him away from his hold. 

As soon as the water had dissipated, Hakoda pushed himself upright, looking to make sure his men were all there.

His eyes widened. Katara was on the deck, and behind her was his boat. The one they had left at the dock a half mile away. She must have used the tidal wave to bring it all the way here and lift it onto the deck. She had made two large wedges of ice to use as boat blocks, keeping the boat perfectly upright.

He looked around in awe as Katara made a rope of water and used it to board his boat. His men spluttered and coughed. Who could have known his precious, compassionate daughter would wield such raw power?

Maybe they really could have taken the entire Fire Navy fleet.

A moment later, Katara made an ice slide from the bow of Hakoda’s boat to the deck of the Fire Navy ship and slid down it, the Avatar clutched protectively in her arms.

Sokka stormed up to her, helping her to her feet before rounding on her.

“A little warning would have been nice!” he snarled. “I’m drenched!”

“Hey,  _ I  _ gave you warning,” Toph said, joining the two of them in front of the water tribe boat.

Hakoda’s eyes swept across the deck one last time. It looked like everyone was here, but there was something niggling at the back of his mind.

“Katara!” he said, coming over to the three of them as soon as he realized. “Where are the prisoners?”

“I threw them overboard,” she said. “They were liabilities. What if one of them had seen Aang and alerted the Fire Nation where he is? The risk to him was too great.”

“Katara,” he nearly yelled. She turned away from him. “You can’t kill prisoners of war!”

“Relax, Dad.” Sokka came up behind him. “Katara’s right. They would have been a liability. And anyways, it’s not like she left them to drown.” He led Hakoda over to the ship’s edge and waved at the waves below them. “See? Oh…”

Eighteen Fire Navy helmets, most of them still on the heads of their struggling owners, were bobbing in the water below them.

“Hey, Katara!” Sokka called. “I think you forgot something. And we need their uniforms!”

Katara had started carrying the Avatar towards the staircase leading belowdecks, but she turned around at the words. Sokka missed it, but the look she pointed at her brother was filled with more bitterness and anger than he had ever seen.

She shifted her grip on the Avatar so that she had one hand free. She curled her fingers and lifted her arm, and Hakoda felt the ship rock beneath them. Then with a rolling motion, she  _ pushed  _ the water out. He watched the wave collect up the prisoners and sweep them towards the shore. It continued rolling forward long after it should have crested. When it finally broke, it was on land, as were all eighteen of the prisoners.

“See?” Sokka said. “Problem solved.”

Hakoda didn’t answer. Sokka hadn’t seen that look. Hakoda was absolutely certain that his daughter had meant for those guards to die. 

He felt sick. When he had left them two years ago, he had meant to protect them, to lead the war away from the South Pole, to give them innocence and -  _ childhood. _ But the war had found them anyway. It had found them as children, and they’d had no one to teach them how to be just in war. He wondered if now it was too late.

Hakoda didn’t see Katara again that night. He and Sokka and the rest of the men spent some time hiding the one remaining Water Tribe ship in one of the holds. Then, as soon as morning broke, everyone went ashore to collect the uniforms of the Fire Navy guards for their disguises.

They pushed away from shore with the tide, and Hakoda ordered everyone below decks to claim a place to sleep and get some shuteye. But by mid morning, nearly all the warriors were up again, their military discipline getting the better of them. By unspoken agreement, they congregated on deck to light their cooking pots and distribute breakfast. 

More than an hour passed quietly before his children and Toph emerged from below, each looking tousle-headed and bleary-eyed.

“Katara,” he said, standing to greet them. “Sokka. Toph. Come sit down. We kept breakfast for you.”

He served the three of them, albeit with some trepidation in Toph’s case. He’d heard that South Pole cooking was an acquired taste. Apparently the rest of the world didn’t care for stewed sea prunes as much as he and his tribe did.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. 

“Smells like seaweed stew,” Toph said when Hakoda handed her a bowl. She took a sip. “This tastes just like how you make it, Katara.”

“It’s the same recipe,” Katara said, smiling at her father. Something inside him unknotted. It was the first time he’d seen her smile since they’d arrived. He’d started to wonder if she still remembered how.

“Hey, kids,” Bato said, joining their small circle and sitting down between Sokka and Toph. “Is the Avatar awake yet?”

Katara’s smile vanished as if it had never been.

“No,” she said, drawing her knees up to her chest. “His body has a lot of healing to do. He might be unconscious for a while.”

“Well, how long is that?” Sokka asked. “A couple of days?”

“Probably more like a couple of  _ weeks, _ ” she said.

“That’s terrible!” Sokka said. “He’ll wake up before the eclipse, though, right?”

“I don’t  _ know _ , Sokka,” Katara said. “I might know more in a couple of days. Once I see how he’s responding to the treatment.”

“He  _ has  _ to be ready by the Day of Black Sun, Katara,” Sokka insisted. “I know we don’t have the Earth Kingdom’s army, but it’s too good an opportunity to miss. We  _ need  _ the Avatar if we’re going to stand a chance.”

Katara put down her bowl, still half full of stew, and stood.

“I’d better go check on Aang,” she said.

“Make sure he gets better, Katara!” Sokka called after her.

“Hakoda,” Bato said. They shared a knowing look.

“I’d better go check on the patient, too,” Hakoda said, getting up himself.

He and Bato had seen hundred of injuries over the past two years, ranging from mild to catastrophic. Together, they had cared for wounded allies, bringing more than they deserved back from the brink of death. And one thing they could say from the certainty of experience was that those who fell into a coma from their injuries seldom woke again. “The living dead,” the men called them - because no matter how vigilantly you cared for them, they eventually wasted away in front of your eyes. 

He made his way down the steps and asked a group of his men which way Katara had gone. The corridors on these ships were like a maze, and he had to ask again before he’d gone too much farther. Eventually, he found her in a room at the very end of a long hallway. It was larger than the other barracks he’d seen - there was only one bed, and there were hangings on the walls. A captain’s room, or state’s room, he thought. 

A whiff of ammonia caught his nose, and he stepped back from the doorway just in time.

“Dad,” Katara said, startled, holding a small amount of liquid above her hand.

“Just here to check on the patient,” he said.

“Hold on. Let me get rid of this.”

Hakoda waited by the door to the state’s room while Katara disposed of the urine in the lavatory nearby.

“Smart,” he said when she returned, following her into the room. “I would have never thought that you could use Waterbending to keep a patient clean like that.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Katara said. She dug in a satchel on the floor and came up with a sprig of something clenched in her hand. “I learned it from a healer in the North Pole.” She held the sprig over a candle for a moment, placing it in a metal cup as soon as it caught. A fresh scent wafted through the room.

“Lavender,” Katara said. “It will clean the air.” She sighed. “Healing loves cleanliness.”

“Your grandmother used to say that,” Hakoda said. He settled himself on a chest, leaning his back against the wall.

“We probably learned it from the same person,” Katara said. “Did you know Gran Gran was from the North?”

“She never spoke about her childhood, but I had my suspicions,” he answered. “The tradition of betrothal necklaces fell out of fashion a long time ago in the South.”

Katara turned to look at him, a hand on her pendant.

“I didn’t know we’d ever had that tradition,” she said.

“When I was a boy, some of the elders could remember a time when couples would exchange necklaces as a sign of their commitment to each other.”

Katara turned to look at the Avatar, her hand still on her neck.

“Huh,” she said.

“What else did the healers in the North teach you?” Hakoda asked, wanting to break the suddenly heavy silence.

“Not enough,” Katara said. She sat on the edge of the Avatar’s bed and looked down at her knees. “There’s not a lot I  _ can  _ do, besides work on his wounds twice a day and keep him clean.”

“What do you do when he soils himself?” Hakoda asked, honestly curious. It was a problem he and Bato had never found a solution for, when their brothers-in-arms had been unconscious for any length of time.

“I can’t do much. I can’t draw it away from his body like I can with urine, so I pretty much just bathe him and change his clothes and sheets. That’s what I was doing last night.”

“It sounds like a lot of work,” Hakoda said.

“I don’t mind.” Katara’s voice was soft.

“What… will you do when his body runs out of water and nutrients?” Hakoda asked gently. This was the question he had really come down here to ask her. Without taking in food or water, a man might die in less than a week.

“It won’t,” Katara said.

“He can’t eat in a coma,” he said.

“No, he can’t  _ swallow  _ in a coma. I’ve been feeding him water and broth. As long as I Bend it down his throat beyond his windpipe, his body can digest it on its own. But I have to stay with him awhile after I do it. If he gags up any of it, he could choke.”

Hakoda spent a moment just watching his daughter. Without thinking about it, without being asked, and without receiving any credit, she had taken over the tasks of feeding, washing, and healing this boy.

“You remind me so much of your mother,” Hakoda said. Katara looked up, a pleased flush rising in her cheeks.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“This reminds me of when you and Sokka were young and both sick with blubberpox at the same time.”

“I don’t remember that,” Katara said, standing up and placing a gentle hand on the Avatar’s forehead.

“Well,” Hakoda smiled. “You were very young, and  _ very  _ sick.”

“But I remember when that tiger-antelope bit your thigh and Mom had to nurse you until you were better. That’s what I want to be like right now.”

Hakoda found himself raising his eyebrows - again. Somehow, he liked the comparison better when it was to a mother with a child, rather than a wife with her husband.

He stayed with her a little longer, but soon he had to leave. Katara had her work cut out for her - as did he and Sokka, if they were to invade the Fire Nation on the day of the eclipse.

***

Days slipped by into weeks, and the time at sea began to take a toll on everyone. It was normal, Hakoda knew, for tensions to run high on ships during long voyages. Communal living was difficult, even without the cramped conditions and poor rations which were endemic to life at sea. Odd flare ups were… inevitable.

His men were used to spending weeks or even months on the water. He trusted them to handle themselves. But he worried about the children, who were used to traveling in the open sky and sleeping on solid ground at night. Even the bison and the lemur were beginning to look a little grumpy.

He especially worried about Katara. With no sign of improvement in the Avatar’s condition, each passing day seemed to bring a new line of worry to her face. She talked less, slept less, ate less, and smiled not at all. When she did speak, there was a sharp edge to her voice, and more than once she encased her brother in a block of ice.

“I’m worried about your sister,” Hakoda said one afternoon, as Sokka used a lantern to melt the last of the ice surrounding his arm.

“Ah, let her be,” Sokka shrugged. “She’s just stressed out about Aang. I honestly don’t mind being her ice-target if it helps her blow off some steam.”

“She’s taken on too much of the responsibility of caring for the Avatar,” Hakoda insisted.

“Good luck telling her that,” Sokka said. He must have felt Hakoda’s eyes on him, because he glanced up and continued. “Look. I know she’s doing a lot, but I actually think it’s doing her more good than harm. Taking care of him is the only thing keeping her head together right now.”

“We hardly see her,” Hakoda said. “I think she might be spending too much time with the boy.”

“Oh, I get it,” Sokka said. He set the lantern down and flicked the last of the ice off of his sleeve. “Because of the Maiden Healer thing, right?”

Hakoda blinked. The legend of the Maiden Healer was very old and very sacred. So old and sacred that he hadn’t thought about it in decades. 

In the early ages of the Water Tribe, caring for a warrior who was wounded in battle was seen as a great honor. So great that only the chief and other fighting men were permitted to do it, and they would take turns nursing the wounded back to health. Only a man’s wife was able to supplant the authority of the chief and other warriors when it came to healing her husband. No other women were even allowed into the warrior’s tent - and maidens were considered particularly taboo. But then - according to the legend - one full moon, just after a young, injured warrior had slipped away into death, a maiden with exceptionally strong Bending entered his tent, using an onslaught of ice and water to force the chief and other fighting men out. She used her Bending on the man’s body, even though he was dead. Death is Unbendable, but her love for him was so strong that it brought him back to life. She and the warrior had been betrothed in secret, and later they married. From that day onward, maidens were allowed into the tents of injured warriors - but Healing one was tantamount to declaring herself his wife.   

“Aang’s only twelve, so I doubt he counts as a warrior under the tradition,” Sokka continued. “And besides, everyone knows they’re going to get married someday anyways.”

Hakoda stared at his son, who clapped him on the shoulder and walked away. He shook his head, filing that conversation under “things to think about later.”

He saw Toph playing with the lemur nearby, and walked up to her.

“Do you know where Katara is?” he asked. She put the flat of her palm against the metal deck to see better.

“It feels like she’s in her closet,” Toph said. Hakoda nodded in thanks and turned away.

Katara’s closet, as Toph and Sokka had taken to calling it, was a storage room off of the main deck where she kept her medical supplies. When he got there, the door was shut. He knocked, as a courtesy, before sliding the door wide.

“Katara,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m cooking, Dad,” Katara said, waving her hand over the cooking pot to stir its contents. “What does it look like?”

“If you’re hungry, we have plenty of fish stew left from lunch,” Hakoda offered.

“It’s not for me. It’s for Aang.” 

“Well, why not feed him the broth from the fish stew? It’s very nourishing.”

“Aang’s a vegetarian, Dad.”

Hakoda scratched his cheek. “But there’s no meat in it,” he said.

“Fish  _ counts,  _ okay, Dad?” Katara said. “At least, it does to Aang.” There was a waver in her voice.

“Katara,” he said, trying to make his voice as gentle as possible. He knelt down next to her. “You’re exhausted. You’ve taken on too much. I’m sure the Avatar would forgive you for not cooking him special meals on top of everything else.”

He saw Katara wipe her eyes, but only because he was expecting it. Over the past few weeks, she had found ways of making the motion more and more discreet.

“I  _ won’t  _ feed Aang anything he made a vow not to eat,” she said. Her words were etched in ice. “Now go away and leave me alone. Please.”

He sighed and stood and made his was back towards the main deck. He was surprised to see Bato just around the corner.

“It’s hard being the father of a teenage daughter, my old friend,” Bato said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Just give her time.”

Hakoda frowned. He wondered how much time they really had.

He spent the evening in quiet reflection and decided - eventually - that Sokka was right. If this was how Katara was coping with the stress of the Avatar’s injury, then all he could do was watch and wait for the moment she needed him.

He was able to hold himself to that for several days, until one of his men, Makko, came up to him one evening while he was eating.

“Um… Chief Hakoda?” he said, eyes downcast and face red.

“Yes, Makko?” Hakoda said.

“Well…” He cleared his throat. “I was talking to some of the men, and we decided that I should be the one to tell you. Because I’m leaving tomorrow to go round up troops for the invasion, and everyone else isn’t leaving until the day after.” 

Hakoda stood. This didn’t sound like good news.

“It’s about your daughter,” Makko said. “A few of us - well, more than a few, actually - have seen her sneaking into the Avatar’s room at night.

“Meaning no disrespect!” Makko rushed to add. “I know he’s the Avatar, and he’s in a coma, and as a chieftain’s daughter Katara would never do anything…  _ improper.  _ But she won’t let anyone else into his room anymore, and…” Makko’s voice got very small. “Well, she  _ is  _ a maiden Healer.” 

Hakoda sighed, and Makko winced and took a step back. He had to spend the next few minutes reassuring the man that he wasn’t angry at him, and that he’d done the right thing by telling him.

Once Makko had finally left, he spent a moment rubbing his temples.  _ Why  _ was it that everyone became so much more superstitious during wartime? Nobody had thought about that legend, or tradition, or whatever it was, in generations! But he did find Makko’s words troubling - although not for the reason Makko thought. Katara had  _ already _ been spending too much time with the boy, pouring too much of herself into keeping him alive. The Avatar was balanced on a sword’s edge between life and death - what would happen to her if, after everything she’d done, he fell?

This brought him to another thought - one he felt guilty even thinking. But if the Avatar was born anew in each generation, with a new destiny to fulfill, what if this Avatar… had missed his destiny? What if it had passed him by while he had been frozen in ice? What if he was  _ meant  _ to die here, so a new Avatar could come to be? One who would be born into the war he was meant to end, not thrust into it?

He wiped his hand over his face. He resolved to talk to Katara tonight. He knew if he talked to her now, she’d just be evasive. Better to follow her when she sneaked off to the state’s room and catch her when her guard was down.

That night, Hakoda only pretended to fall asleep in the small barracks room that he shared with Sokka and Katara. He wasn’t surprised that she was managing to slip out at night without waking him or her brother. Back home, before he’d left for the war, she had mastered the skill of getting up silently, so that she could start her chores without waking him or Sokka. These last few days, when he’d woken to Katara’s empty bedroll, he had just assumed she had taken to waking up early again.

It was just past midnight when he felt, rather than heard, Katara sit up. She eased the door to their barracks room open and then closed it behind her just as silently. He waited almost a minute before following, so as not to catch her in the halls, where she could reasonably claim to just be going to the lavatory. 

As soon as he left the barracks, he almost walked into Toph.

“Toph,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said. She was leaning against the wall of the corridor, her arms crossed over her chest. “But I figured you’d get around to following Katara one of these nights.”

“So you’re serving as Katara’s lookout?” he asked sourly.

“Kind of, but not in the way you mean,” Toph said. “Katara doesn’t know I’m out here. I just wanted to ask: whatever you were going to say to her about sneaking off to Twinkletoes’ room - can’t it wait until morning?”

“My daughter is run-down,” Hakoda said, stepping around Toph. “She can’t keep working all hours like this, or she’ll do herself harm. She needs  _ rest. _ ”

“I agree with you,” Toph said from behind him. “That’s why I want you to wait until morning. She’s asleep.”

Hakoda turned back around, his eyes meeting Toph’s unseeing ones.

“She only sleeps when she’s in the same room as Aang.”

He stared at her in silence for a long moment.

“You can feel all that from the vibrations of the metal under our feet,” he said softly.

“Well, yeah,” Toph said, scratching her ear. “But I didn’t have to. I don’t mean Katara doesn’t sleep  _ here  _ unless she’s in the same room as him. I mean she doesn’t sleep  _ ever  _ unless she’s in the same room as him. I think  _ not  _ hearing him breathe wakes her up for some reason.”

For just a moment, Hakoda felt like he was drowning. Memories he had tried to forget - memories of the months after Kya’s death - flooded his mind. How many times had he woken, drenched in a cold sweat, the silence next to him roaring in his ears?

The moment passed. He inhaled.

“Thank you, Toph,” he said. “I will take your advice and leave her to sleep.”

He paused, then continued. “This war has forced the children of our world to grow up too fast. Thank you for being a good friend to Sokka and Katara.”

“Eh, whatever,” Toph said, waving a hand and turning around. But Hakoda would have bet a barrel of sea prunes that her nonchalance was feigned, and that even now she was smiling to herself as she returned to her room. He smiled, and returned to his.

The next morning dawned hot and humid. They were getting close to the Fire Nation now. Hakoda took care of his morning ablutions and then went straight to the Avatar’s room. 

Katara was rebandaging the Avatar’s wounds when he got there. The flickering candles threw the new hollows in her cheeks into stark relief.

“What do you want, Dad?” she asked, barely glancing at where he stood in the doorway.

“To talk to you,” he said.

She was quiet for a moment, wrapping the Avatar’s arm.

“So talk,” she said.

“Katara, I’m worried about you,” he said. “You’re spending every waking moment in here, caring for him.”

“Because he needs me.”

Hakoda sighed. This was going… about as well as he’d expected it to.

“Katara. The Avatar has been unconscious for over three weeks now. You do everything for him. He can’t even  _ swallow  _ on his own. You are holding him in life, but what kind of life are you giving him?”

She paused for just a moment, and he saw a tear drip down her cheek. But then she kept working.

“I have seen the passing of many of my friends - my brothers in arms. I have nursed some of them myself. And I must tell you, I have never known someone who has been asleep for this long to wake up.”

Still Katara said nothing.

“Are you hearing me, Katara?” he asked. He took a step forward. “The day may come when you  _ must  _ accept that the Avatar will not-”

“No.” Her voice was quiet, but it cut through his like a knife. “No. I can’t give up on him. I won’t give up on him. He  _ will  _ wake up.”

“You can’t  _ know  _ that, Katara-”

“ _ I will drag him back from death as many times as it takes. _ ”

For the first time that morning, she truly looked at him. Cold fire burned in her eyes.

The enormity of her words landed on him like ice. He remembered what he’d thought when he’d first seen the Avatar: that his wounds were too severe to have survived. He heard again Sokka’s words in his ear: “ _ I thought he was dead. But then Katara did something, and he sort of - came to life again.” _

The words from the legend rang through his mind:  _ Death is Unbendable, but her love for him was so strong that it brought him back to life. _

If anyone was capable of that kind of love, it was Katara.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I spoke out of turn.”

What else was there to say? 

Five days later, when the Avatar woke, Hakoda was the only one among them who wasn’t surprised.


End file.
